


(Never) Supposed to Happen

by Ghost_in_the_Hella



Series: To All of You (prompt fills) [11]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Did I Mention Angst?, F/F, Implied Death, Implied Violence, Prompt Fill, Self Loathing, Suicidal Ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-07 07:14:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26469283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghost_in_the_Hella/pseuds/Ghost_in_the_Hella
Summary: None of this was ever supposed to happen.
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price, past Rachel Amber/Chloe Price
Series: To All of You (prompt fills) [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1656067
Comments: 19
Kudos: 26





	(Never) Supposed to Happen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [explosionshark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/explosionshark/gifts).



> Explosionshark hit me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ghost-in-the-hella) with the angst prompt "This was never supposed to happen" and LiS. I've been reading Harrow the Ninth, so you can blame Tamsyn Muir for this being written in second person.

“This was never supposed to happen.”

You don’t even realize you’ve said it aloud until you see the heartbroken look on Max’s face. Those words have been ringing in your head nonstop since last October. You’ve left a trail of black marker behind you all across the country, tagging every stop along the way so that the rest of the world would know; it’s a wonder you’ve managed not to say it to Max before now.

Because this life - this life you and Max have somehow cobbled together from the ashes of your past lives like some fucked up kind of phoenix - wasn’t supposed to happen.

You were supposed to die with a hole in your heart and a curse on your lips, scared and bleeding on dirty bathroom tiles. You were supposed to be forgotten as soon as the bloodstains were washed away. Chloe who? Max was supposed to let you die so that nobody else had to. Max was supposed to be in class, peacefully oblivious to the death of the girl she’d once called her best friend and then forgot for five long years. Nathan was supposed to go to jail, to detox, to a mental health facility; not to end up in his own shallow grave.

Rachel was supposed to live forever. She was supposed to run away to L.A. with you and become a famous model. You were supposed to be her trusty chauffeur, bodyguard, lover. The two of you were supposed to take over the goddamn world together. Or you were at least supposed to share a shitty apartment in some sketchy part of L.A. and scrape together the rent doing whatever menial job you could manage to pick up. It was supposed to be the two of you against the world, always and forever.

Your dad was supposed to come home that day with your mom and too many groceries for one person to carry. He was supposed to dance with you at your wedding and tell you that he’s proud of you no matter who you love and teach his awful dad jokes to his grandchildren no matter how many times you rolled your eyes.

Your mom was supposed to be happy. She was at least supposed to be alive. She was supposed to complain about your antics til her hair went grey and she was supposed to love you anyway. 

Max was supposed to stay in Arcadia Bay. She was supposed to be your best friend forever. She was supposed to be the glue that held you together after your dad died. The two of you were supposed to grow up and move in together and paint everything in your shared apartment gold like you promised when you were younger.

Max was supposed to stay in Seattle. She was supposed to forget that you had ever existed and live a normal life. No super powers, no life and death decisions, no world-changing consequences. She was supposed to have a healthy relationship with a stable person and be a famous photographer and live her dreams instead of her nightmares.

“Shhh, shhh…” Max pulls you into her lap and rocks you like a baby, and you’re crying so hard that you feel like one. “I love you,” she promises, and the thing that hurts most is that you know she believes it. “I love you so much.”

Max was never supposed to fall in love with you. She was never supposed to throw her life away like that. She was never supposed to live in a crappy RV, constantly moving around the country because she never feels safe staying in one place anymore. She was never supposed to cry every time it rains, to wake up screaming every night from dreams of pasts that never happened and futures that can never be. She was never supposed to look in the mirror every morning and see the haunted face of someone who chose to let thousands die to keep one wretched, ungrateful soul alive. She was never supposed to carry this burden.

“I love you,” she repeats, stroking your hair that you haven’t washed in over a week because what’s the fucking point, what’s the point of anything, what’s the point of keeping yourself alive, “It’s going to be okay.”

“ _Nothing about this is okay_!” You thrash and wail and grind your teeth, and Max holds you like she’s trying to calm a frightened animal. And maybe she really is; you’re nothing but adrenaline and instinct and brain chemicals screaming at you to fight or flee or die, or to do all three at once.

“I know,” she says wearily, “but I love you anyway.”

“ _Why_!?” you wail. You cry in her arms until you’re too empty to move, and she never gives you an answer. She just keeps holding onto you, and maybe that’s an answer in itself.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to explosionshark for the prompt and to all of you for reading! Hit me up with more prompts on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ghost-in-the-hella), and be generous with comments and kudos because I crave the validation.


End file.
